During my time as vice president I was representing Wikimedia Deutschland. I've attended three Wikimanias and several international meetings where I always felt more like a promoter of "Wikimedia" than a single chapter. Supporting chapters is more than only advocate them in meta discussion. For me it is also to know about their programs and initiatives and to talk with them and about their ideas. I follow what is happening in chapters and I support them directly for instance in participating meetings and international events and talking about those in my blog at random intervals. Furthermore I enjoy attending Wikipedia meetups, which take place every few weeks somewhere near my residence. I'm regularly asked to answer questions about the chapters, the Foundation and their relationship and I have the impression that there is an awakening interest in the editing community in Wiki_m_edia and international affairs which need more attention and serving than we provide today.
Although I understand that Amical is one of the most interesting questions when we talk about new models today, I find it difficult, if not wrong, to look at Amical as an example or pattern for every other existing or upcoming organization besides chapters. And I find It even more complicated to do it with this named coherence of Amical being funded with a grant when the chapter in comparision maybe never have applied for a grant. Indeed, there is a history and many people were involved in discussions about Amical's chapter status, politics and self-image. But before judging we need to have a check with reality. Amical is working as a part of the movement with its events, contacts and communication. They are heavily involved in GLAM and other movement-wide issues. So there need to be a place for Amical within the movement. That place is not a chapter and it can't be something which is the same as a chapter with just another name. The idea of new models is currently in discussion and I believe that it is necessary to have descriptions and definitions for chapters and other models to help them and any other non-chapter-group find their place, to know about rights, obligations and differences between those models. The attendance at meetings that are today limited for chapter representatives and some more questions about "who is allowed to do x" and "do we as an international pool want x to do y" will no longer be questions when this definition process will be finished.
The discussions about fundraising and fund dissemination have proofed that there is no single way to serve all needs. I don't believe that there is a simple A or B as the one and only solution, neither for fundraising nor for dissemination. There will be different and varying ways to handle different situations. If there are stable organizations, reliable structures and no extra effort, decentralized funding is the choice. It's easier to review a budget for a local foto-workshop when you know local prices, habits and expectations. And it is much easier for volunteers to ask and negotiate for a grant in their own language. Whenever there is a need to spend money in parts of the world where no chapter or other organization with an accepted level of accountability exists, centralization is a proper option to realize efficient funding. I can imagine a centralized funding committee combined with decentralized models provided by chapters and other groups.
Looking at the funding of the chapters themselves we should try to concentrate on what are chapters founded for. To get the best result for the movement we must ensure that chapters get all financial support they need to realize their ideas in the next year. No entity may be bothered about where this money comes from or how to deal with legal matters. But if they can, and if they meet common standards of accountability, and if it isn't an extra burden, they should be able to.
I've met and changed some words with most of them at Wikimanias or other events, with some I've been out for a drink. The relationship was friendly and respectful at any time.
As said in my statement I am a former board member of Wikimedia Deutschland and a member of Wikimedia Nederland. The relationship to both boards has always been friendly and respectful. I am an OTRS administrator since 2009, a member of Wikimania Scholarship Committee for the third time, and I was involved in the initial steps of Wiki Loves Monuments in Germany last year. I find myself more in organizational and strategical issues than in taking part in GLAM or educational projects, which are best-cast by people who like to work more on real touchable projects than on abstract visions.
I follow discussions on foundation-l and internal-l as well as those on Meta and I contribute to them when I believe to add something new with my statement. Sometimes it's hard to stay tuned and place your thoughts suitable to the frequency of mails while you're doing your regular job. I don't believe that just reiterating things that have already been said really helps to bring discussions or processes forward.
I don't know these sites particularly but there are similar in German as well. In general I think that criticism, especially from outside, is necessary for the development of all Wikimedia projects, and if it is only to be aware about our image overall. We tend to only recognize and admit criticism from inside the projects because of the idea to know what you're talking about. If the question "who is the recipient of all the effort to create a free encyclopedia" is answered with "for those who are creating it" it probably would be enough, but I don't believe that this is the answer most of us would choose. If we want our work to have impact to the world "outside" we need to listen to the world's thoughts and suggestions about what we are doing and how we are doing it.
I know, your question covers the grey zone where inside and outside merge and that's more difficult. Freedom of expression is one of the greatest goods and worth protecting it with words and action. That doesn't mean that everything which is done under the cover of free speech is protected by design. It's not true in real life and it's not in the Internet. There are legal and moral borders which differ from state to state and which must be taken into consideration.
Since I only have a vague idea what you are talking about (I'm not a member of the English editing community and as said I don't know those sites in particular) it is difficult for me to get the exact point. Projects must firstly find their own procedures and rules to protect anonymity and contibutors. Their communities are responsible for protecting their members and that happens with oversighting, blocking users and other measures every day. As a member of the OTRS team I know that this works quite effectively. The best place where the Foundation could and should step in, is in supporting, motivating and encouraging communities to work on processes and policies to cultivate the protection their own members.
Foundation and especially chapters can help individually in cases where these internal project processes don't work anymore, or if a contributor is being sued for doing his work for the projects, or if the result of a lawsuit is important for the projects and the mission in general. Although this support seems to be so obviously it is necessary to keep in mind that every contributor is responsible for his own edits and so it is necessary to think about regulations and prerequisites for such individual support and assistance before any Wikimedia organization grows into a special kind of legal costs insurance company for Wikimedia editors.
I would like to talk about two situations, one in the Wikimedia context, the other from my professional activity.
During the time I was member of Wikimedia Deutschland's board I was working on restructuring the association's organization model. The idea was to transfer legal liability for the chapter's activities from board (all volunteers) to the paid executive director and I've run two working groups with participation of association members, board members and external advisors to prepare the necessary changes in the bylaws. It took more than two years of deliberation with the board, the chapter's members and the interested community to realize this. There were lots of concerns about hidden motives and personal advantages which were discussed highly emotionalized on mailing lists and on Wikipedia. The proposed changes, including strengthening the role of the general assembly by giving them the right to reject or approve the annual budget, were accepted by a solid majority of the general assembly in the first attempt, but didn't get the necessary 2/3 majority. After adjusting those parts which causes most opposition (a two year term for the members of the supervisory board) the proposal was submitted again and it was accepted by a large majority. So in the end the chapter has made substantial steps forward to solve problems of liability and keeping the voluntary work in the supervisory board attractive.
I've chosen in this story because I think that it often needs a long breath, a strong will, and sometimes a second attempt to work on necessary changes to get accepted results. And you need to reflect if a partial aspect of your idea is so important that it is worth to let the whole project sink. If it's not, don't adhere on it.
In my daily work I join a lot of spontaneous and regular meetings. In Germany there exist some administration unions of several municipalities to concentrate skills and efforts, gain synergy effects, and benefit from knowledge transfer. I work in a municipality which is partner in one of these unions. It provides services like application services, programming, hosting and procurement of hard- and software for its members which pay for these services. (I'm not sure if this description of a very German government structure is clear enough to get an idea of it.) One of the long-term working groups in the union was created to find new pricing models. The goal was a) to find a model that is able to refinance the administration union, its staff and equipment and b) to allow the municipalities to have more influence on their annual budgets by deciding to take a service or not. Involved were representatives of eight municipalities, from 5000 inhabitants to 600000 and of course some representatives of the administration union. Different from everything I've discussed in the Wikimedia context, these discussions were dominated by the fact that there is no money at all. Municipalities are in debt and need to economize heavily. But they also need professional IT-services to fullfil their obligations and tasks for their citizens. I took the job to draft a statement of basic principles and finetune it with the other seven partners. It took a year but now we prepare to implement the new pricing model for the annual plannings for 2013.
I've chosen in this story because I think that it is a special challenge to accomodate such a wide range of needs, resources and wishes between large cities and small towns. It is not only that the language is not the same, also time, financial and human resources are not comparable at all. To avoid discussions to get stuck it needs to come back to the essential and common goal again and again.
In general I've made the experience that some approaches are not very helpful to reach consensus:
to insist on the one and only view of the world
not to take different positions as serious as the own
to let discussions escalate and go out of hand
to omit the voices that are not participating, sometimes they need advocates because there might be good reasons for them not to join
to struggle for details before the common direction is clear
And here are some that worked well for me:
to keep the whole picture in mind
to explain what you want to achieve and what is important for your position and why
to be ready to find healthy compromises and show that in taking the first step towards the others from time to time
to propose concrete ideas, adjust them regarding the feedback, propose the changes, reiterate
to bring all participants together to what connect them and what they agree on, after that start to resolve disagreements
I was secretary and vice president in the board of the nominating chapter Wikimedia Deutschland from 2008 to 2011. I am still a chapter's member but don't hold any function.
Being a member of the Board of Trustees means being responsible for the Foundation, its business and its development. Besides that the chapters selected board members are not representatives, neither of a single chapter nor of the community of chapters. What they however should do, and that is what I want to stand for, is bringing sense and awareness for chapters and other movement groups into the board decisions. Insight and consolidated knowledge of their work, their needs and motivation. Chapters are essential parts of the movement, despite all the difficulties in the long and stormy relationship between them and the foundation. They are the entities which have valuable knowledge about and the direct line to the different communities and the local partners. Having that in mind all decisions should follow our common mission and reflect as many views as possible. If I had doubts about it which weren't reduced during the discussion period, I would not vote with yes.
Trustees are the ones to have the whole image in mind. They have to take the responsibility for the Foundation's view and at the same time they must have the movement-wide overview. When it is necessary to bring one or both of these positions into the process, they could and should participate and take an active role in developing such standards. Since they are responsible for supervision and control of the Foundation they should strictly draw a clear distinction between their own tasks and those of the staff or the movement. Tasks of the trustees in this concept include the approval and periodical review.
Yes, it definitely is a pressing issue. If Wikipedia and its creators, contributors and communities rest on what has been achieved until today it is not sufficient to change the understanding and the dealing with free knowledge sustainably. The editing community seems to underestimate it, it looks as if they feel quite comfortable with what they have built and how they do their work. Retention is not a problem for those who stay. And changes within the projects, their processes and their self organization are no longer as easy as they were when they were younger, smaller und more experimental. Only new contributors can bring in new impulses. The challenge is to preserve what has been achieved and increase the attractiveness of contributing without annoying the long time editors.
To be honest, I don't see that specifying thee concrete means, elaborating initiatives or implementing them into Wikimedia projects is part of a trustee's job. That is something to be done by the staff in regular exchange with the communities. They have access to data analyses, they can estimate feasibility and they have the tech team to develop cool tools and software enhancements. What I believe is still open and must be done by the foundation in cooperation with the editing communities is
to to analyze what are the binding mechanisms and elements for current contributors and strengthen/expand them
to find ways to talk to those who left the project and get firsthand information about their motives
to address people who have never thought about joining the community and learn about why they haven't.
To assess the current efforts I would need more data than I have today. But I see some very promising beginnings like the visual editor or the editor's feedback tool and I am really impressed about the seriousness and determination which is seen in this work. An urgent matter is still to promote the understanding for one another, foundation and communities. Communities must not believe that the foundation works against them. We need more examples like the revision of our Terms of Use, where mutual respect and cooperation led to a commonly supported result.
Decentralization is one of the essential themes and a drive for all what we do with and in Wikimedia. Take all the projects in an unbelievable number of languages, where the power to establish regulations about content and cooperation is in the hand of the contributors to exactly that single project. There are few common policies (the five pillars, and even those shrinked to four in de-wiki for example) and the rest depends on size and needs of each project and is done by those who know it best - the contributors. Giving them the power to organize their work on their own authority allows them to indentify with _their_ projekt and that not only creates close ties but also work as a catalyst for further improvements.
This is transmittable to chapters work or thematic work like GLAM. In a decentralized structure you get the decisions you need in time and customized to the special needs and at the same time you strengthen the volunteers, provide recognition and empower them to take care for what they love according to basic principles. Yes, I believe that decentralization is the best way to the end, accompanied by centralized structures which give general support and fill the gaps where no decentralized structure exist.
I'm an example by myself that language indeed can be problem for active participation. My school English has slept for about 25 years and it is not that easy to wake it up and bring it up to an acceptable level. Discussions in the Wikiverse are quite often wordy and as complicated as the problem they deal with. Sometimes eloquence is celebrated just for the celebration and it seems as if nobody really cares that sophisticated wording makes the understanding more difficult for every non native speaker. It sets up hurdles to jump into such a discussion when your vocabulary is poor and it's hard to express your thoughts anyway.
I think we need to try different approaches from different positions to support the participation of non english speakers. Certainly it would be helpful to simply accept that Wikimedia is an international movement with lots of non native English speakers and to agree on some standards like a reader orientated, comprehensible and accessible style. The new translation tool can help a lot to translate board resolutions and core papers on meta into as many languages as possible. While this side - bring information to people - can be done with existing tools, the challenge is to find ways to increase active participation - to get more information. We could work with more intermediaries and community liasons in more languages. Or make offers for discussions in other languages on meta. Or just start with asking those who don't participate what they would need to do it. I don't have a brilliant idea but I think that it is necessary for the movement to make more efforts to increase exchange and active participation across languages.
If there were comprehensible definitions of both organizations, their purposes, their goals and obligations there shouldn't be any potential for conflict. I'm not sure if that's the case with the Indian organizations but I realized that there were concerns about the trust and its public perception in comparison to the chapter. I can't and won't exclude that there are misunderstandings and communication problems but I definitely know too less about it to give me a full picture.
Whenever Wikimedia starts to discover new horizons it should remember the impressing power, initiative and commitment volunteers can generate. When necessary supported by paid consultants, when possible supported by similar Wikimedia entities like chapters. I don't believe that it is possible to inspire the idea of free knowledge in developing countries with patronizing methods. It always needs some self responsibility and self obligation to establish commitment and identification with the mission and the movement and that can be fostered with volunteers. To promote them and provide financial, organizational and professional support whenever needed is one of the the foundation's essential tasks.
The Board of trustees is the Wikimedia Foundation's overseeing body. That's its role and commitment. The Wikimedia movement is much more than only the Foundation and so the board is just not able to speak "in the name of". And following this call the board of course is responsible for the acknowledgement of those entities who want to start relationships with the Foundation which include financial and organizational agreements. This is what chapters do - with all odds and risks and with all rights and obligations. For both sides, chapters and Foundation. In which way the board will take this task in the future, when there are more chapters and other organizations to be approved, must be part of the ongoing discussions about new affiliation models.
Today I run for one of the chapters selected board seats and that is what I concentrate on and what I want to achieve. I'm not holding a backdoor open just in case. So without having spent any particular thought on it: Both concepts are very important for the future of the movement and both need highly dedicated and responsible people. In my mind the FDC, although still too vague to imagine, requires more capacities and experiences in planning and realizing concrete initiatives, whereas the council needs more expertises in organization and governance. I believe I could do better work in the council than in the FDC, but that's not a question for me now.
It is already realized that the majority of the seats is not appointed, which for me is necessary to give those groups impact to the composition of the board, who are concerned. Community, chapters, maybe others in the future. To have some of the seats being appointed is a protection against inactivity or inability to work because of the body's constitution and it guarantees some neutrality and outsider's views, which should not be underestimated. If the relation of appointed and (s)elected seats needed rearrangement should be considered when the ideas about new affiliation models have been worked out a bit more.
